Darryl finally grunted acknowledgment.
“Zack needs to know we have his back,” Adam said. “Sherwood broke up that fight—and you kept Zack safe.” He let that sit a moment and added, “Protecting Zack was the most important job. That means you or me—not Post.”
“But,” Darryl said, “if I had stopped Mary Jo and George, they would not be hurt—and Zack would have been safe, too.”
“There was another fight brewing right behind Zack,” Adam said. “Honey and Luke. If you hadn’t been right where you were, Luke couldn’t have used you to put distance between him and Honey.”
Darryl grunted.
“I know you saw that,” Adam said.
At the beginning of the hunt, with the moon madness easing into their bones, it didn’t matter how close their human halves were. Before they started the hunt, sometimes all the werewolf wanted was blood.
“I did,” said Darryl, though he still sounded ruffled. Then he muttered—as much as anyone with a chest like Darryl’s could mutter—“I didn’t know if you saw it.”
There was the key. Darryl knew he’d done the right thing. He needed to know that Adam understood that, too.
“I saw you and Sherwood working together to keep the bloodshed down,” Adam told him. “You trusted Sherwood to do his job. He trusted you to do yours. I trusted both of you to keep Zack safe. We are pack.”
“Sherwood is strong,” Darryl said. “Dominant.”
“So are you,” Adam returned. “I can’t tell you how this will play out between the two of you.”
“And Warren.”
Evidently Darryl was through pretending that Warren wasn’t dominant enough to have been Adam’s second, if dominance alone had been the decider. Good. That meant Darryl would have to figure things out there, too.
Adam thought Warren had been correct to take the third position in the pack when he’d joined—though he and Adam knew Warren was more dominant than Darryl. Their pack was, as Mercy put it, about half a century behind contemporary social norms. She’d usually add, “That means that you are about a century ahead of most packs.”
Adam had had to force the pack into accepting Warren. They wouldn’t have allowed a gay werewolf to step into a position that meant he might have to take over as Alpha—not then. But now their pack found themselves standing alone in the worst game of king of the mountain Adam had ever participated in. After the last six months, there wasn’t a wolf in the pack who wouldn’t follow Warren straight into hell and back again.
Some change was for the better.
“And Warren,” Adam agreed.
There was a pause, and Adam let Darryl think for a moment.
“You could have stopped that fight. All the fights.”
Adam was pretty sure Sherwood Post could have done it, too. But Darryl didn’t need to understand that yet.
“Yes,” agreed Adam. “I could have used the pack bonds and put everyone on the ground.” He decided to let Darryl in on a secret. “And even back in their human bodies if I’d had to. All of you.”
“What?” Darryl asked, sounding appalled.
It was supposed to be the kind of thing the Marrok could do to you. Not an ordinary Alpha. In fact, Adam had never done it to more than one wolf at a time. But Adam’s wolf was certain.
“Yes. I could have. But it would have hurt them a lot worse than Post hurt Mary Jo and George. It would have told them I didn’t trust them to control their wolves. It might have made them lose trust in themselves, in their ability to keep their wolves under control, when sometimes the only thing that allows them to do that is the belief that they can.”
Silence hung in the air for a moment.
“I’ve been in a pack like that,” Darryl said. Adam felt the muscles in his back release at the sudden lack of tension in Darryl’s voice. “With an Alpha so busy making sure no one lost their cool that not one of them could function without him.”
“Except you,” Adam said, because that had been something the Marrok had told Adam when he’d sent Darryl to join Adam’s pack.
“Except me,” Darryl agreed, and Adam could hear that the events of the moon hunt had been dealt with to Darryl’s satisfaction. “So why did you call me?”
Darryl had government clearances that were higher than Adam’s—working in a think tank made that a necessity. That meant Adam could lay the whole problem out for him.
“Sabotage?” Darryl said thoughtfully when Adam was finished.
“Or spies. Or someone on the inside playing games. Kidnapping, even.” He paused. “Vincent said they had been ready to carry off bodies. He thought that meant they intended to kill both of my people and take their bodies. Maybe they were intending to carry off a live person as well.”
“To what end?”
Adam shrugged, though Darryl wasn’t going to see him. “I don’t know. I don’t know what all they do in those labs—I’m not sure SecDef does, either. But one of my people got killed, so I’m going down. I need you to take charge of the pack for a few days—maybe a couple of weeks—while I go and bless some hearts and take some names.”
“Everyone knows that’s your security company down there,” said Darryl. “If I wanted to get you to leave the pack to its own devices, this is how I would do it.”
That thought had not escaped Adam. He had it every time he had to go to DC, too, for the same exact reason. “Yes.”
“Why aren’t you calling Sherwood to hold the pack?” Darryl asked, his voice carefully neutral. “Since he quit hiding his light under a barrel, it’s pretty obvious that he is tougher than I am.”
Than I am, too, thought Adam, but that wouldn’t be useful to say aloud. He wasn’t sure his wolf would let him do that, anyway.
“Who cooks the pack Sunday morning breakfast?” Adam asked softly.
Darryl didn’t answer.
“You love this pack. Warren loves having a pack to belong to, but there are some of our wolves that he’d be just as glad to kick to the curb. Sherwood is just finding his balance. He lost a lot, and sort of regaining his memory”—the whole pack now knew about that—“has been a mixed bag.”
“He’s got pretty good balance from where I’m sitting,” muttered Darryl.
“So do you,” Adam said. “And my wolves look to you to take care of them. They trust you. Being a second, being an Alpha, is a two-way street. The pack has a place in those decisions.”
“Okay,” Darryl said. “I hear you.” He cleared his throat, evidently done with that subject, too. “I felt a flash of something through the pack bonds tonight. Mercy get another call?”
“Yes,” Adam said.
“She tried to hide it from you again.” Darryl sounded grimly amused. “If she hadn’t, I’d have felt more than a flash.”
Darryl was getting sensitive to the pack bonds—another sign that he was ready to take on his own pack. That was understood between them. But Darryl wasn’t going to desert this pack until the heat was off them, even if it took years. Which was a good thing, because Adam was very much afraid that he couldn’t let him go until that time. His wolf wouldn’t let him weaken the pack like that.
“Mercy doesn’t want me to worry when there is nothing I can do. We’re tracing the calls when we can. Knowledge is power and all that. But we’re in a waiting game.”
“Sucks,” Darryl said, agreeing with the sourness of Adam’s tone. And with those words Adam felt the bond between him and his second settle back into place. And for the first time since the moon hunt, it felt right. Darryl had been correct; Adam should have called him sooner.
“Yep,” Adam said. “Defense always does.”
Darryl made a sympathetic noise. Then, gravely, he said, “We’ll take care of her while you’re gone.”